Insert Careless Victim of Murder Here
by complexities
Summary: A group of Sues have invited themselves to one of Boddy's usual house parties. Only they aren't so much interested in the millionaire as they are in the Agents that are sure to pursue them. An ACMSES fic.
1. First Night

**Disclaimer:** This fic is set in the board game – not in the movie – and as such, rights to Clue belong to Hasbro, who acquired Parker Brothers as well as Waddingtons. All ACMSES characters belong to their respective authors/alter-egos.

Sometimes you just have to force writer's block into submission...

...

The hits registered all at once.

"What the hell!"

In a tone as annoying as that used by any instant messaging program, the ACMSES surveillance system let the currently active Agents know that Sues had been found inside one or more fandoms.

Inara was one of the Agents on monitor duty tonight, and with her was the slightly more senior Charis (this was true in terms of age as well as experience). Ever since Charis had begun accepting missions, she'd also been added to the rotations for watch of the Society's computers (on Tuesdays and Thursdays, from 10pm to 12am PDT) and guarding the basement (every weekend, from 1pm to 5pm PDT). Nowadays she had much to occupy her time with, outside of her lab, and she'd been trying to slowly build up a resistance to her claustrophobia in order that she could move around in the Library with less difficulty.

In line with this effort, she'd been putting herself through breathing retraining. She'd been reclined in a half-lying position, trying not to move as she alternated between breathing in and out – with short pauses in between – when the sudden disturbance caused by the computers made her eyes fairly fly open in alarm. Inara was quick on her feet, and she silenced the noise coming through the speakers straight away. As Charis took a moment to reclaim her dignity, Inara's fingers flew over the nearest keyboard in a time-saving pattern that the head technician had shown her just earlier.

"I've got this," Inara said confidently. In response to the commands she keyed in, white windows appeared and fought for space within the confines of the screen, until they were tiled in a rough 3 by 2 line-up. There were five Sues, all in the same fandom.

"The fandom's name is Clue." Inara abandoned the computer to Charis as she pulled out her communicator to reach Michael. "Michael, this is Inara calling from the monitor room. We've Sues loose in Clue."

"...try saying that ten times fast."

T_T_T_T_T

The exterior of the Boddy mansion was that of your typical English country house - which should mean nothing to the readers. After all, the term can encompass vast country palaces and comparatively small country houses, as well as anything in between the two extremes.

Using superior description, the appearance of the Boddy mansion could be better described in one word: eerie. Of no concern to the Agents was the style of architecture, the size, the number of various bay and picture windows, or the impressively tall hedges surrounding the habitation. What did matter were the weather (a fine mist of rain), the near-complete darkness that had accompanied nightfall, and the shadows that the house lights created on all sides of the garden.

After a long trek in the dark, you would think that a lit-up home would seem welcoming. Instead, the sight of Tudor Mansion made one aware that its lights were the only illumination for miles around. Once the Agents entered, they would surely be cut off from any outside help. The group – four of them – hesitated before the grand front doors, but after one look of false confidence led to another, bolstering everyone's spirits collectively, the first of them grabbed the ring of the door knocker and let it swing.

T_T_T_T_T

It was Karissa who stood directly in front of the door, and so it was her who John Boddy – known by the locals as Dr. Black – immediately addressed.

"Welcome, my dear guests, to Tudor Mansion. I was almost afraid you wouldn't be joining us tonight."

Karissa's mouth dropped open, and then it closed. She opened it again to reply, "Well, here we are now." So Boddy had been expecting them. That was unusual. The Agents had expected that they'd have to provide a cover story, something like a car that had broken down on the road, in order to be let inside.

"This is horrible weather, isn't it? I almost prefer it whenever we're told to expect a drought." Boddy smiled crookedly. "Won't you please come in from the rain? Your friends should like that too." He stepped back from the doorway to admit them, and a bemused Karissa moved forward; after her followed Lily, Stephen and Kyle.

Earlier in the Library – once he'd ceased all silliness – Michael had attempted to run an advanced search for 'Clue' in the list of fandoms that certain Agents claimed comprehensive knowledge of. He'd hit a dead end with that. He'd known he didn't have the time to be picky in the choice of team, given the number of Sues to deal with, but he hadn't exactly wanted to pick Agents off a directory at random. Just as he'd been resigned to do just that, he'd remembered a day when all the power had gone out in the Library. Don't ask how. In the spirit of a blackout, work was abandoned, candles had been lit, and boardgames had been excavated from the backs of closets. One group of Agents had been coerced into playing Cluedo (as it's known outside of North America). It had turned out that...Karissa, yes, her, she was singularly talented at the game, but she'd deceived three others by pretending she'd never played before. Her competitors had been...Lily...Stephen...and...Kyle. In that order, he'd called the others to his office; by that method, he'd chosen the Agents for this mission.

Karissa was no stranger to working with her friend Lily, but this would be first time she'd worked closely with either Stephen or Kyle. The group shuffled in their shoes over the doormat, shook some of the moisture from their coats, and then proceeded to stare as soon as they were able. Boddy was perfectly content to let them gawk for a moment or two.

They presently stood inside the Hall.

In anyone else's house, such a room would make up a living area. An electric fire burned artificially against the wall to their left, and other items in the room included some decorative plants, a tall grandfather clock, a table for the post, two china cabinets, and several marvellous paintings. Chairs were scattered about the room, and lamps or smaller tables stood by their sides like sentries. The rug on the floor was purple on blue in a design of repeated squares. Three doors – one single and one set – led from the room, and only these made clear that the Hall was decidedly a hall, as through the open doors the Agents could see...a lot of hallway. At least six other rooms. Stairs leading to another floor, and others possibly leading to a basement. A lot of hallway – sorry, was that already stated?

Kyle muttered something about rich people and lack of common sense.

Boddy acted as if he hadn't heard.

They were asked to leave their coats on a long wooden table that seemed unsuitable for the task – "They'll be put away later," – and in the absence of further instructions, Karissa began a path towards one of the doors.

"I'm sorry. There is one more thing I require of you." The Agents turned around at the clear, ringing words from Boddy's mouth. These two sentences had come out far more forcefully than anything he'd said before. "I must ask you to hand over every weapon that you might be carrying upon your persons." At the reaction displayed across each of their faces, he added hastily, "It would not be the first time that my guests have _mistakenly_ overlooked the postscript on my letters. I ask people not to bring weapons so that it would become less likely for violence to be committed in this house." Boddy struggled to conceal a wry grin. "People feel surer of their personal safety if they are armed, but in my experience, a group of people all armed will tend to misunderstand each other. What was once the potential threat of physical harm is escalated to– well, the threat of murder. You wouldn't believe the events that occurred at my last little gathering."

In fact, after reading an insert included with most Clue games – on top of the instruction manual – the Agents were positive that they _could_ believe an account of the tragedy that struck Boddy's last party. He'd died (for a short period of time).

They pulled out their weapons one at a time, according to the degree with which they had nothing to lose. Lily placed down a purely ornamental knife, knowing that the Pins on her bracelet wouldn't register as weapons unless she deliberately activated the psychs they contained. Stephen laid down a sword – a big sword – that Karissa had once teased him mercilessly about, but neither was he worried, because his secret psychic skills did not leave him defenceless. Karissa dithered for a long while, but eventually she removed Gekkou from its place inside her sash, albeit with obvious reluctance. Only Kyle made no discernable movement.

"I find it hard to believe that you're not holding out on me." Boddy met Kyle's stare with his own, and raised a sceptical brow.

Did he think that Boddy could detect the dozen plus weapons hiding inside his Astral Vault? No, Kyle didn't think so. His gaze deepened into an intimidating glare.

"Come now. Don't be like this. I can't let you proceed any farther until I know you're unarmed. I don't want any harm to come to my distinguished guests!" Boddy was well on his way to becoming agitated.

"I think he's let slip that – in his eyes – his other guests are more important than we are," Lily whispered in an aside to Karissa.

"If they're Sues, no doubt they easily made him believe that they are. But that doesn't make them any better than us in reality," Karissa said brightly. "Kyle, please, could you relinquish your guns as he asks? Not only the guns, of course, but also...anything else that you're keeping back." Kyle's philosophy spoke that power was only as versatile as the imagination of the user, and so he might have prepared armaments more exotic than firearms for this mission. She didn't want to offend him.

For a brief moment she was afraid that she'd aggrieved him nonetheless, but then he heaved a sigh. "You guys go on without me. This is going to take a while." Oh. He'd brought along that_ many_ weapons.

"I will stay with him," Boddy agreed. "If you'll just step through the doors and turn to the room on your left, perhaps you'll spend a few minutes mingling with my foreign guests in the Lounge." He was dropping hints left and right. Reading between the lines, not only did the Sues possess influence that could excite a rich man, but they'd also purported to come from overseas.

T_T_T_T_T

As soon as the Agents walked into the Lounge, they were made to feel underdressed. This was a fact, rather than an impression caused by the Sues' glamour.

Karissa was wearing her regular black on black overall outfit, on top of which she tied a red silk sash. Lily was wearing a dress shirt – which was acceptable – but she also wore a miniskirt and had sneakers on her feet. Stephen was wearing his blue tee, khaki shorts and orange hat ensemble. They hadn't looked so odd when they'd walked into the house draped in ubiquitous raincoats, but among the rich furnishings of the mansion they stood out like funeral guests wearing all white.

Red. Yellow. Green. Blue. Purple. The Sues were assembled against the opposite wall, nearly forming a rainbow with the colours of their dress, but at least their evening clothes appeared properly sumptuous and rich. Karissa would bet that the Sues' names were derived from the colours they preferred, just as Boddy's canonical guests' had always been. Two of the Sues were male – Stus, in fact – and the other three were female. Regardless of gender, they were all breathtakingly beautiful. On the whole, they possessed very light hair, blue eyes, a straight nose, and pale skin that demonstrated the absence of toil in the sun. It was a pity that the women were short, or else their group could have posed for a poster depicting the _Homo Europaeus_ (or Nordic) race.

Only the male clad in green and the female clad in purple paid them much attention. After a cursory once-over, the other three pointedly resumed looking out one of the windows at the sliver of moon in the sky above. The purple Sue strutted forward in a catwalk stride. She might have been the oldest of them, but she couldn't have been a day over thirty. She was very well-groomed.

"Greetings, Agents of the Anti-Cliché and Mary-Sue Elimination Society." Somehow, articulating the entirety of the ACMSES title benefited her; she came across as delicate and aloof and ironical, all at the same time. "I am Lady Iris. There stand Lady Tiffany and Lady Amber, Lord Rufous and Lord Kelly." From her impersonal introduction of the others, Karissa understood that maybe the Sues were unrelated, after all. It was something other than blood that tied them together. "We have been expecting you. We've been kept amused by Boddy's distress when he thought that he would be unable to bring you here on time, yet we're glad that you've finally arrived."

"Most Sues aren't _glad_ to see us. That's a big mistake on your part." Stephen bridled.

"Yes, Iris, I have to agree with Stephen. What exactly do you want? And where are the game's usual cast of characters?"

Tiffany's gaze cut sharply to Karissa. She spun around from facing the window. "You will address us with the respect we're due!"

"Shove it, Tiffany. I'm not Cristoph. 'Lord' and 'Lady' don't just trip off my tongue, and I would consider none of you as friends anyhow. Iris, I'll say it again – what are you Sues up to?"

Lily had stepped forward to keep the furious Tiffany in her sight, and now she thought to seek out Amber and Rufous too. For some reason, Kelly was restraining them so that they wouldn't attack. She saw Kelly place a conciliatory hand on Rufous's arm and whisper something into his ear. The Stu relaxed, and Amber followed his example. Karissa had hardly noticed. She was wholly concentrated on Iris.

"Well, which question should I answer first?" The coiffed Sue wound a loose strand of hair around her finger, coiling it into a perfect curl to match all the others on her head. Studying this piece intently, she lilted, "Boddy's previous guests were no fun to play with. Every time I employed the slightest bit of suergy on the man, the rest threw off our thrall and would begin to squabble. They trusted none of us, because they could never trust each other." Iris sniffed, affronted. "Puppets that won't yield to the pull of their strings should have said strings severed."

Murderess! None of Boddy's friends or associates had been particularly agreeable, but according to the "sanctity of life" principle every human life deserved to be preserved and protected, whatever the individual's qualities or characteristics.

Disregarding the Agents' rising fury – or perhaps relishing it – Iris continued to speak with the expectation of their absolute attention. "As for your second question, what we'd like to do is play a game with you. One of us will slay Boddy – he has served his principal purpose, next best to dying – and you will have to guess who did the deed, with what, and where." This would explain the locale, if nothing else would. Either the Sues had originated from this fandom or else they'd picked this board game precisely for its method of play. "I wouldn't recommend guessing blindly until you think you can eliminate us all, because I warn you that there will be consequences."

"What a time that took!"

Into the midst of this confrontation, Boddy intruded with the ease afforded by ignorance. "You must know each other well enough, after that long while. May I suggest that you next proceed upstairs to make your preparations for dinner?" Boddy peered at Karissa, Lily and Stephen. "Your luggage didn't arrive with you. I'm not sure how you'll manage. My friends–" This to the Sues. "Do you wish to change your attire as well? My Lady Iris, you are already so beautiful." He kissed her hand. Stephen gagged.

By this point Kyle had rejoined his fellow Agents, and he spoke on behalf of them. "Expect us in the Dining Room in ten minutes."

T_T_T_T_T

"Kyle! How are we going to get dressed in ten minutes? Oh my god, if this is a formal dinner then I'll need makeup! I hate makeup. It will take me forever to put on makeup." Out of the presence of the Sues, it was as if a switch had flipped in Karissa's brain. She was wringing her hands anxiously, and even Lily was caught up in the worry of what appearance she should put forth at an important sit-down dinner.

"Calm down, Karissa. First of all, tell me what I missed." After being informed of the Sues' challenge, Kyle leaned back against a chair in his guest room, and closed his eyes to think. Karissa began to fidget again. The bed on which she and Lily were sitting bounced perceptibly. Without opening his eyes, Kyle said aloud, "Why don't we just leave?"

"What?" Thinking of the deal he'd made with Tash and Adrian, which was contingent on bringing in at least three Level Four Sues, Stephen was resistant to this idea. With the capture of Fey Tale, he only needed to subdue two more Sues, and he would bet that every Sue in this company hovered around Level Five. They'd broken loose of their Author's control, for sure, even if they lacked the power to do anything with their freedom.

"It seems to me that these Sues have entered the fandom only to provoke a response from the Society. What would you do if a child was dramatically throwing a fit for attention? Ignore him until he realises that kind of behaviour won't get him what he wants." Kyle shrugged, as if he expected this simple solution to be as obvious to the others. "We can call their bluff. It's not like they're doing any harm here. If we leave, they'll enjoy one night's free stay courtesy of Boddy, but they won't have a reason to toy with him any longer."

"And what if they do murder him, like they murdered all the rest of the characters? How can you say they've done no harm when six lives have been extinguished since their arrival?"

"The fandom will take care of any fallout. It might be revealed that the lack of breath attributed to Boddy's death was in fact a result of sleep apnea, and as such he'll be released from the care of the coroner before he's been halfway transported to the morgue." Stranger explanations had been made to account for Boddy's continued existence. "No corpse remains dead in this game for long. The others will come back to life sooner or later – like zombies." Kyle attempted to introduce some humour to the situation, but no one else laughed.

"I don't think we should rely on the fandom clearing things up for us. It's our duty to Prohibit all of these Sues if possible. In the novel series, Boddy was only revealed to be alive _after_ every instance that his killers were captured." Karissa spoke at last.

"I don't want to be held responsible for another fandom being sealed off," Lily added. Only recently – with the arrest of Matthew Slaymaker – had Avalon Code and Aria of Sorrow been restored to their original states.

"Let's vote on it then," Kyle conceded without much ado. Unsurprisingly, the number of hands up exceeded Kyle's own, left down, meaning that favour ran with those who would rather stay and investigate.

Karissa peeked at the alarm clock on top of the bed stand and gasped. "Five minutes! We have five minutes left!" None of them had thought to visit the Automatic Tailorisation Machine before they'd left. What would they wear?

At that moment, her Communicator chirruped to indicate an incoming call. "Karissa, are you alright?" It was Charis. "I've been following your mission in the monitor room, and it looks like you're in the middle of a fashion crisis." Oh, that sister of hers! You could almost hear her wicked smirk over the airwaves. "I believe I've devised a solution for your little dilemma. It should suit all of you."

"Thank you, Charis," Lily replied politely, since it didn't seem that Karissa was going to.

T_T_T_T_T

Charis's contributions could essentially be called dresspheres. Like the items from Final Fantasy X-2 with the same name, each dressphere basically changed the wielder's appearance (this was no video game, so changes to weapons and stats were nonexistent). A small Plothole had been sufficient for her toss the dresspheres one by one through to them. Karissa and Lily had received modified versions of the Lady Luck dressphere. Yes, their outfits were tighter than they would usually be comfortable with; however, they were greatly relieved that all the formerly cut-out panels which would have exposed skin had been stitched shut. Revealing, these dresses were not.

Karissa's dress was bright red, reminiscent of the uniform she'd worn when first joining the Society. The form-fitting sheath terminated just above her knees, and it left her shoulders bare. Her short inky hair had grown to the length that Lily's had reached before – it just barely grazed her collarbone when let down. After unfolding the sash that was kept around her waist, it was revealed to the others what a truly large piece of silk it was. Karissa knotted two ends together just underneath her bust line, and so the silk became a sort of train that swept around her feet gently. She wore her black ribbon choker and black heels, and red gloves no higher than her wrist.

Lily had expected that her dress would be green, but Charis sent a black gown that ran down to her ankles. It was slim and simple, and ran in a halter style around her neck. It complemented her dyed hair so well that she looked as brunette as Karissa if they weren't standing side-by-side. She wore longer black gloves that went past her elbows, and for once she had the opportunity to display her Pin-studded jewellery openly, for she wore both her bracelets on top of the gloves. You could hardly see her shoes past the cut of her skirt, but she wore emerald pumps of an average height. She didn't look too short next to Karissa, but her feet were more likely to thank her at the end of the day for sparing them that extra inch.

Stephen and Kyle had received modified versions of the Psychic dressphere. The former wore a long-sleeved dinner jacket in bronze over pants of the same colour. The latter wore much the same thing, but in white. Their shoes were made of brown tooled leather. There was some questionable ornamentation on the cuffs of their sleeves, but nothing in particular gave away the futuristic origins of the outfits. By mutual agreement the two had divested themselves of the mirrored goggles that were the most characteristic feature of Psychic. Stephen carefully folded the arms on his pair and set them upon the folded pile of the clothes he'd came in. Kyle carelessly tossed his pair into the depths of his Astral Vault. He might like to find them again someday, or on the other hand, he might not.

The dresspheres were easy to equip, thank goodness, so Kyle's hasty promise that they would show up in the Dining Room before the start of dinner held true. The men helped all the women into their chairs, and then the arrival of appetizers signalled the beginning of what was sure to be a tense dinner. It was a five course meal. French onion soup followed the appetizers of cold cut meat and cheese; then came individual garden salads. The main course was a venison and mushroom terrine, marinated in port and spices to lend it extra flavour and moisture. Dessert was served in the form of a decadent chocolate soufflé. None of the Agents took wine with their food, invariably asking for water or juice instead; conversely, all the Sues – and their host – indulged in the alcohol with apparent delight.

At the conclusion of the meal, Boddy invited them all into the Study for nightcaps. Feeling a little braver, Karissa accepted the offer of a drink the second time she was asked. Boddy poured out a cream-based liqueur into a shot glass for her. "Karissa!" Lily scolded, when she saw what her friend held in hand. "We're not of the legal age to drink!"

"It's funny that you should say that. In the United Kingdom it is permissible to give children aged 5 or older a small quantity of alcohol to experiment with, provided it's done in private. Youths aged 16 or 17 are allowed to consume alcohol at the table with their meals." Kelly had sidled up to them and overheard the tail end of their conversation. "I'd wager that both you and your friend here are 16 at the very least. Therefore, no worries. Would you like a glass for yourself, miss?"

Lily shot Kelly a horrified expression before she could stop herself. "You leave us alone," she told the Stu, walking away with Karissa.

Some of the Sues who had already reached their limit declined further beverages. Nevertheless, everyone filed into the Study at Boddy's behest. For lack of anything better to do, Kyle moved with the crowd. Inside the room, he spotted a gramophone in pristine condition under its glass case. He put on a record of jazzy classical remixes in short order. The music receded behind Stephen as he drifted to the Library across the corridor and pulled a book off the shelf to read. Ignoring the hostile glances that Lily continued to send him, Kelly reclaimed his spot in between the girls and proceeded to chat them up. Karissa tried hard to keep the topic to the weather.

At long last the clock struck midnight.

T_T_T_T_T

"Somewhere, Cinderella's coach has turned into a pumpkin," Kelly teased. He had an uncommonly pleasant voice. Karissa was poised to make another banal comment about the beauty of the night's stars when, abruptly, a horrible realization came upon her.

People had gradually been leaving for bed for all of the last fifteen minutes. She had no certainty about the order in which the others had left. She didn't know if Boddy had left already, and she had no idea if he was still alive. She broke off on what she'd been about to say to Kelly, and after a silent communication with Lily, took off across the room in a great swish of silk. They wasted precious minutes searching for Stephen and Kyle, until finally the collected Agents stood in a huddle at the foot of the stairs – in the precise centre of the house.

"What kind of detectives are we?" Karissa agonized.

"We aren't," Kyle replied brusquely.

"We have to find them!" Stephen declared, and that they could agree upon, but it might be easier said than done. They hashed out a plan and hurriedly went about their separate ways.

Karissa was appointed with the task of checking up on Boddy, if indeed he was in his room. She rounded a corner on the upstairs landing and was puzzled to see Kelly coming up the stairway that was twin to hers. They met outside Boddy's bedroom door. "I came to wish our host a good night," Kelly explained himself.

Karissa nodded. That was reasonable. She set her clenched fist against the closed door and performed a light knock. "Dr. Black? I was terribly rude, I'm sure, but I forgot to bid you goodnight before you retired." She waited with bated breath, unsure if she would obtain an answer.

"That's very kind of you. Goodnight," a muffled voice returned.

"Goodnight, Dr. Black," Kelly offered from over her shoulder.

Again, a curt goodnight was echoed.

In any case, Boddy was lively enough to be surly. That was a small victory.

T_T_T_T_T

None of the women had gone to bed. Lily didn't know whether to be happy or dismayed with this finding. With a little effort, she'd discovered that Iris, Tiffany and Amber had merely moved into the Billiard Room to prolong the night's merriment. Tiffany and Amber were very definitely merry. They hadn't stopped drinking until they'd been forced to. Iris supervised them with a critical eye, but she looked much more interested in Lily's entrance.

"Don't I know you?"

Lily froze in place. She'd been dreading this. She'd thought herself lucky when Karissa and Stephen's antagonism towards Iris had cut short the incomplete round of introductions yesterday. The Agents hadn't had the chance to throw their respective names out. True, Karissa had let Stephen's slip carelessly from her tongue; and then Kelly had gleaned hers from Lily's lips. But it had been feasible that she wouldn't be required to disclose her own identity. Not so, now.

Well, what did she have to be afraid of? Lily forced her spine to straighten out, and at her full height, she looked down her nose at Iris. With a surge of pride that had carried over from her past life, she stated openly, "My name is Lily Adamson. You might have known me as Bella Aubrey."

Iris looked as if she were fascinated. "I've heard of you. How is life on the other side?" she added contemptuously.

Lily donned her best poker face. "I couldn't be happier. I've got a boyfriend who loves me. I've got friends. I belong."

Suddenly Amber and Tiffany burst into the chorus of a song –

_I couldn't be happier_

_Because happy is what happens_

_When all your dreams come true_

_Well, isn't it?_

_Happy is what happens_

_When your dreams come true!_

– and they were able to hold the last note for a whole beat before collapsing into a drunken sprawl.

Iris shook her head in disbelief, either at Lily's words or else at the antics of the Sues a level beneath her, but she put down her wineglass and pronounced mockingly, "It's time to call it a day, I think."

T_T_T_T_T

Not soon after departing from Karissa and Lily, Stephen and Kyle came upon Rufous lounging against the doorway of the Study. He held the bottle from which Boddy had served their nightcaps tightly in one hand. Stephen assessed the scenario summarily. "Time to go, sir," he huffed as he forcibly pried the liqueur from the Stu's grasp. "Kyle, grab his other arm," Stephen directed, and together the two of them managed to frogmarch Rufous up the stairs and into his room.

"Stay inside!" Kyle slammed the door shut in Rufous's face. Belatedly, he decided to assume that the Stu had retained enough dexterity to be able to undress himself.

Stephen looked wearily over at the other Agent. "I shouldn't even think longingly of the bed in my own room, should I? We'll have to guard his door all night."

After thinking it through, Kyle nodded sympathetically.

"Oh great."

The sound of footsteps heading in their direction had the two of them on alert once more.

"Good evening, gentlemen," Iris trilled as she passed them. It looked as if she was allowing Lily to escort her to her room. The men decided not to comment on the unconscious forms of Tiffany and Amber, whom Iris carried on her shoulders, one to each side. The added weight put no apparent strain on the Sue. Those two were dropped off – so to speak – in their rooms, which came first in the women's passageway. Presently unencumbered, Iris smiled at Lily before stepping past the corner that separated the final three guest rooms from the rest.

"Your room is closest, but I think you'd like to watch me walk into mine, and moreover lock the door behind me." Iris leered at Lily, and in response to her disagreeable manner the former Sue nearly retorted that she wanted no such thing. Only, of course she did.

Iris did as she was told, sashaying past the threshold with one, two, three rhythmic steps. As soon as her door closed, the sound of the lock being employed came loud and clear. Lily ducked into her room, sticking her head out to check on the corridor at intervals. After repeating this procedure for three times or more – and not once did she hear a scrabble to indicate that Iris's lock was about to twitch back – Lily decided that things were settled enough to warrant her going to bed.

T_T_T_T_T

No sooner had Lily and Iris disappeared from Stephen and Kyle's line of sight than Karissa and Kelly walked into view. The girl flashed them a quick thumbs up to signify that Boddy was alive and well, and then she turned to the Stu beside her and said rather sternly, "This is where I leave you. You will go inside your room and consent to be watched over for the remainder of twilight. Do you understand?"

"I am not hard of hearing, nor am I simple," Kelly said with dignity.

"That wasn't what she was accusing you of. We know that those traits would be impossible in a Stu," Kyle interjected. "Now move."

Kelly winked impertinently at Karissa before he went to comply with Kyle's demand. He blew a kiss aimed at all the occupants of the hallway before locking himself in, and the male Agents shuddered. Karissa didn't know what to feel – there was an odd sensation in her stomach that she couldn't accurately identify as nausea.

Stephen moved to form a human barricade blocking Kelly's door, and Kyle rearranged himself in front of Rufous's door in order to maximize his comfort. Seeing that the guys looked to be spending the rest of the night out in the hall, Karissa decided that it would only be fair if she were to do the same in the women's hallway. Testing the knobs on the first two doors, she determined that the locks were not engaged. She was not happy with the fact, but it would be impossible for her to act upon it. The next two doors that she attempted were locked, but Karissa stared at them apprehensively all the same. Who was behind each door? She supposed that the empty room at the end was meant to be hers.

She reversed until the solid presence of the wall made itself evident behind her back, and then she slid all the way down to the floor. She paid no mind to the inevitable damage that she must be causing to her skirt. With two doors in the left of her peripheral vision, and two doors in the right of it, Karissa also took up "night watch".

...

A/N: Originally this wasn't supposed to be published until I had the complete story done. This on the advice of Inara, who said my writing would drag if I turned the oneshot into a multichapter. I didn't disagree with her – and still don't – but I'm afraid of other events occurring in the ACMSESverse beyond my control. I've referenced a few others' stories here, and I don't want those references to become obsolete.

Hope you've enjoyed things up to this point.


	2. First Morning

**Disclaimer:** See Chapter One.

Welcome to the rewrite of Chapter Two. I've dropped a few additional hints this time around, so that more people can try to guess the murderer. I've also had to make up a Sovereign encounter to fill a plothole in this story – please don't wonder how that incident fits in with the chronology on the Wiki, because it doesn't.

...

It has been widely disputed what is the most appropriate range of time within which to consume breakfast. On one extreme, some people would say that it is impossible to develop an appetite as early as 6 am; on the other, there are those who would argue that past 9 am breakfast is no longer considered "breakfast" but rather "brunch". In any case, not once between 6 am and 9 am did John Boddy make an appearance downstairs to partake of sustenance.

He could not have been dreading the meal itself, because the vittles were quite good. A 'Full English Fry-Up' lay sprawled across the dining room table, consisting of eggs, bacon, sausages, fried bread, baked beans and mushrooms. At first Boddy's absence meant nothing to his guests, other than "More for me, less for you."

Only after Karissa had polished off several helpings of fried bread doused in syrup, in her seat next to Lily, whose plate displayed more variety – and remarkably more restraint – did she hear someone off to her side remark innocently, "Oh dear, where is Boddy this morning?"

It was Iris's voice that spoke, but nonetheless the entire breakfast tableau came to a halt, Agents and Sues alike.

The first to recover was Kelly. He resumed movement of his right hand to spread butter over the remainder of his rye toast. However, he said nothing.

"Perhaps he's feeling unwell," Rufous suggested in a snide tone. Once again he looked utterly flawless, although his alcoholism was still fresh in the Agents' memories of the night before.

"Spare me the theatrics! I don't buy the innocent act. What have you done with him?" Stephen resented the apathy that was so apparent on the Stu's features. More to the point, it was written clearly across his face how well-rested he was. How dare he flaunt the spectre of sleep before a man whose eye bags were so pronounced that, at the moment, even Lil' C would probably run from the sight!

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," Rufous replied blandly.

Kyle's fist clenched, jerked forward, and then retreated, thankfully beneath the cover of the table the entire time. The Stu's smirk was damn smug – and it irked him – yet it suited Rufous well. Likely he wore that expression always, regardless of whether he was in the middle of a lie or not. His arrogance was not nearly a reliable indicator of guilt.

Meanwhile, Karissa was having similar difficulties in determining whether the Sues' reactions were, in fact, just an act. Remembering the first fundamental error she'd committed after yesterday's dinner, she'd since succumbed to doubt that she had the mindset necessary of a good detective. Moreover, when had she been pronounced capable of recognizing guilt in another person? She could detect Sueishness, yes, but not innocence or lack thereof. Tiffany and Amber certainly looked clueless. If she _had_ to hazard a guess, she would say that those two weren't involved in this murder...if indeed murder had already been done.

Lily couldn't help but notice the instant that her teammates began to grow more hostile in their demeanours. With the idea of diffusing the enmity in the room, she prepared a kick under the table to draw any – or all – attention to herself, but Karissa beat her to the goal and with different methods. Her friend abruptly pushed her chair back with a harsh shriek of wood on wood, and without a word, she dashed from the Dining Room. Lily thought she might be headed upstairs.

Unaccountably worried by this turn of events, she pushed against her own chair carefully, so as not to recreate the same discordant noise. "Please excuse me from the table," she said quietly. Kelly made to rise from his seat too, in an antiquated but charming gesture of respect, but she insisted against it. "There's no need for that. Not from you, at least," she added, as the other Agents stood to leave the table after her.

"Don't mind us. Of course we'll _stay put _right here while you go off and hold your conference," Iris simpered

Kyle said boldly, "Yes, you will." In reality, he had no method of enforcing his statement – not with all his weapons confiscated, and he'd only thrown a steak knife into his Astral Vault when no one was looking – but Iris didn't need to know that. For all she knew, he had a gadget that would stop her time. Charis was always churning out new devices.

Lily examined the Sues' still-full plates and decided that Kyle didn't need to bluff quite so forcefully. They might really continue to hang about the table if only to finish their breakfasts.

In any case, the Agents put some distance between themselves and the Dining Room, until they were all gathered in a huddle before the house's grand stairs. "Déjà vu," Lily murmured imperceptibly. No one really took notice of her utterance.

"If the fall of her steps is anything to go by, she ran all the way up to the third floor," Stephen suggested to the group. "She's stopped running now."

"Let's follow her."

Kyle had led the charge just past the second floor when all of a sudden the Agents heard a loud crashing sound from above. "Karissa!" They picked up their pace and rounded the curve of the banister to come in sight of the third floor. Front and centre in their line of vision was the master bedroom that occupied most of the floor. However, in the space where Boddy's bedroom door must once have been, there was no longer a door anymore. That piece was on the floor, minus part of the lock that had come unattached from the door. As well, a long piece of the door frame around the lock area had almost completely splintered off. It seemed clear that the door had been kicked in with quite tremendous force.

"Karissa?" Lily looked into the room and spotted her friend standing stock-still in the middle of a carpeted expanse. "Are you okay? This is your handiwork, isn't it? Why did you break down Boddy's door?"

"It was locked," Karissa replied, her posture barely changing as viewed from behind. "I'm sure that there were neater ways to remove the door, but I was in a hurry." She finally turned to face them, and she looked devastated. "Guys, Boddy's not here. Is he still among the living or isn't he?"

Kyle moved into the room to join the others. "It doesn't appear that Boddy's bed was slept in," he observed. "The covers still have their hospital corners and the top sheet was never folded up. See?" He demonstrated. "In the general area, there's an absence of the items that I would expect to see a man use prior to turning in for the night. Also, I would point out that his dressing gown hangs untouched on its hook, and his carpet slippers sit undisturbed under that shelf."

As Kyle was speaking, Stephen had gravitated towards a solid wooden wardrobe that sat in the corner of the room. Grabbing hold of its handles, he took a quick look inside. "His dinner clothes aren't present anywhere among these coat hangers," he reported.

Kyle took a deep breath and asked them all to account for their movements between twilight and the present hour.

Karissa offered to speak first. "After turning Kelly over to your care, I was just around the corner and out in the hallway all night. I only budged once past dawn, to take advantage of the amenities offered by the washroom. That break took me half an hour."

"Was showering for half an hour really necessary?" Kyle asked, bemused.

"Well, I had to change my clothes too!" In expressing exasperation, Karissa lost some of her despondency. "Was I the only one unable to determine how to _un_equip my dressphere? I guess so."

Lily was embarrassed to admit that she'd actually benefited from the comfort of her bed during the night. However, she still made a contribution to the discussion. "Occasionally I'm an early riser, and this morning I woke and was going to head below prematurely. I must have stepped into the hall only a minute after Karissa left, but instinct told me to linger, and so I was on guard until she came back. The hallway couldn't have been unattended for very long."

Kyle and Stephen were able to verify each other's alibis down to the last second, and they'd both seen the Stus go down to breakfast before themselves. Karissa had seen Amber walk down ahead of herself, and Lily had herded her neighbours Tiffany and Iris down the steps. "It's getting to be annoying that this place has so many staircases," Lily complained. "Karissa and I were going to descend together, but our 'charges' chose to go their separate ways. Imagine if the Sues got into the house's secret passages! We haven't accounted for those exits, and they'd be like mice in the woodwork."

This verbal reminder of the manor's not-so-secret passages visibly disturbed Kyle. "Isn't there also a servant's staircase somewhere hereabout? We should have been monitoring every possible route in and out of the more notable rooms from the start."

"Speaking of servants, who prepared the food earlier? Are there more flesh and blood bodies inside the house?" Stephen became overly excited at the idea that they might have overlooked something so important.

"Let me stop you right there," Karissa spoke slowly as she deliberated. "Seeing as Mrs. White is dead, such details as cooked food, clean linens and made-up beds can most likely be attributed to ordinary plotholes. Sorry, Stephen, but I wouldn't bother looking into the matter."

If they were to work from the assumption that Boddy had, by now, been killed then the logical next step would be to split up in a search for his corpse, which would provide irrefutable evidence of the fact. Together they checked what was left of the third floor. Besides Boddy's room, there were women's baths down one corridor and men's baths down another. Karissa could not shake the feeling that something terrible would happen as she and Lily investigated the showers, but no horror movie clichés came to life in that time, and so they left the space unharmed.

With the search of the third floor done, Lily and Stephen separated from the group with the intent to ransack the downstairs rooms, even the unnamed ones. They noted with no little concern that the Sues seemed somewhat smug whenever they would catch a glimpse of the Dining Room in passing. Simultaneously, Karissa and Kyle made reasonably thorough inspections of each of the second floor rooms, all of which now boasted free entry.

Karissa stuck her head past the jamb of one of the doors that had troubled her the night before. She saw the shape of a dressphere sitting on the bedside table, and beside it – looking quite incongruous – a Nintendo DS plugged in to charge. So this room, which had previously been locked, had been Lily's. That meant that the formerly locked room sandwiched between her own room and this one must have belonged to Iris. She didn't know how relevant these details might prove to be, but she mapped them to her memory all the same. Once she had ascertained that no clear cadaver lay in the vicinity, Karissa withdrew. She met Kyle coming out of Stephen's room with a grim visage. "Have you found something?" she asked him.

All of a sudden he was eying her warily. "Are you sure that Boddy had the opportunity to return to his room after pouring drinks for everyone in the Study?"

"What do you mean? I heard his voice issue from inside his room. I-I spoke to him, and he spoke back to me!" Karissa was bewildered by this line of questioning. What was Kyle trying to get at? "He inhabited his bedroom at least as early as five past twelve, and within the few minutes following that we had each and every Sue accounted for."

Kyle regarded her silently, but he did not behave as if he had been satisfied by her responses. "Let's survey the hidden passageways and then reconvene with the others."

T_T_T_T_T

Lily passed by the Library for the second time as she patrolled the ground floor of Tudor Mansion looking for a corpse. On her last circuit all five Sues had still been in the Dining Room. Now she came up against Kelly in the hall, with Iris and Rufous at his back.

The younger Stu flashed a smile at her, as he approached sedately. "There you are, miss. If you're done with the third floor, I was wondering if I could be allowed use of the bathroom."

Lily waited pointedly, but it appeared that Iris and Rufous were not going to ask permission for themselves. "All three of you would like to go upstairs then?"

"Yes, please."

"I suppose that would be fine. We found nothing up there, anyway." Lily stared narrowly at each of the Sues, looking for some expression of conscience in the eyes of the guilty party, but either none of these three were the killer or else the corpse really wasn't hidden on the third floor.

At that moment Stephen joined up with them, leaving off his counterclockwise tour of the house, whereas Lily had been patrolling in a clockwise direction. He warned the Sues, "Don't stray from your path to the showers, or else Karissa and Kyle will catch you. They're still prowling the second floor."

"Will do." Kelly's smile had taken on a mocking aspect. He really disliked the presence of the guys, Lily realized. As the Sues ascended the stairs, she and Stephen shared an unspoken thought, and they both cut behind the foot of the staircase to reach the Dining Room sooner. Tiffany and Amber were still inside. She began to breathe a sigh of relief, until she noticed that everyone's dishes were gone and the two Sues had switched seats with each other. Had they left the room once before she and Stephen arrived, during the time that their elders were providing the Agents with a distraction?

"I'm sorry that you all left food on your plates, but I prescribe to the notion that once a person has departed from the table, they are not only done eating but they are done dining as well."

Lily whirled around to face Iris. "I thought you were showering–?"

"Assumptions are dangerous things to make. I merely felt the need to cleanse my hands after breakfast."

"If that was all, why not do that downstairs?" Stephen demanded furiously.

"I didn't care to."

Before Stephen could further engage Iris in a verbal sparring match, the sound of sliding wood drew everyone's attention to one of the room's two doors. The open door lined up with another leading into the Lounge, and those with the best view could witness Karissa and Kyle climb up out of the floor, having pushed aside a trapdoor to make room for their heads.

"Hel-lo! Have you made any deductions yet, Sherlocks?" Stephen's tone was chipper, but he was envious that he'd not had the chance to explore beneath the mansion himself.

"I'm pretty sure that Boddy _is_ dead," Kyle said, as they drew closer.

"How can you be sure? We found no body."

"We found no Boddy," Kyle quipped back effortlessly.

"Har de har har." Now Stephen's voice let on that he was most unamused. "If that is truly your opinion, then what shall be our next course of action?"

"I haven't thought of it yet."

"I've had an idea. Let's make a Suggestion to the Sues."

Iris arched an incredulous brow. "Are we beginning this already? You just confessed that you've not even found a body yet. Playing by the rules is too hard for you? How pathetic."

"I think that the pot is calling the kettle black," Kyle began, but Stephen cut him short.

"I don't care what you think, Iris! I just want to get this over with." With a sneaky grin, he pushed past Kyle and Karissa to step foot in the Lounge from which they'd left. He rushed, "I suggest that Tiffany killed Boddy in the Lounge with a Knife!" Although the girls looked at him expectantly, it seemed that something – apart from their reactions – had disappointed him. "I thought that Tiffany might be teleported to this spot instantly," he explained, with some lingering hope that the phenomenon would yet occur.

"I think that would be asking for too much," Lily broke it to him gently.

"The fandom's struggling to retain some sense of realism. We can summon the Sues to different rooms, but we'll have to do it the old-fashioned way, that's all," Karissa added.

Despite their reassurances, Stephen was well put-out as he returned to the room. His behaviour caused Iris to laugh out loud, sounding very much like the repeated peals of a delicate silver bell. "Oh, that was most amusing, Agent. For that reason alone, I will offer you a throwaway. There won't be any penalties for this one guess you've made. However, beyond this point, remember the counsel that I gave you – 'I wouldn't recommend guessing blindly until you think you can eliminate us all, because I warn you that there will be consequences.'"

Yes, Karissa thought, she had emphatically warned them against pointing fingers too freely. The longer she thought about that fact, the more inclined she was to acknowledge a nagging suspicion at the periphery of her consciousness. Simply put, she was unconvinced that the rules of the board game were being strictly enforced within the fandom. According to the instruction manual, the only consequence of posing a Suggestion was that the other players must then disprove the Suggestion, if they can. If the players had anything to be wary of, it was rather more likely to be the undertaking of an Accusation. Yet Iris's threats were only valid if the rules had been altered...

"Did we miss anything?" The rearrival of Kelly and Rufous broke Karissa's train of thought.

"The Agents have given in and are making Suggestions," Amber informed them. She reminded Karissa of a student who had just answered a question posed by a teacher and expected due reward.

The incoming Sues entered the Dining Room and made for their previous seats, but Karissa stubbornly put a hand over the back of Kelly's chair before he could reach it. She put her other hand on top of the cleared table and brought her hands together, bringing the chair flush against the table's edge. Perhaps she thought that refusing the Stu his seat would cause him some discomfort, but he only smiled at her. Of course. Overly perfect beings would not be defeated by the mere task of being asked to stand on their feet, even if the chore required the entire day.

"Will they guess again then?"

"Don't mind if I do. I suggest that Tiffany killed Boddy in the Lounge with a Knife, same as before," Stephen declared. "Iris, you laughed at me, but you refused to tell me if I was right or wrong in any of my facts. My intuition tells me that I've struck a nerve with you."

"What foolishness. A man's intuition counts for nothing. Why would you choose–?"

"Why Tiffany?" Surprisingly, Karissa found herself finishing Iris's statement of disbelief. "I thought it improbable that the girls were responsible for this event." She wasn't consciously aware if she was playing the Devil's advocate or simply expressing an opinion.

Stephen frowned in an indistinct manner. "Did the feminist movement never happen?"

"Oh, I know that females are as capable of murder as males. I only meant that Tiffany is one of the weakest Sues–"

"Ergo, disposable."

"–and she was drunk."

"Could it be that she's an actress?"

"_Our_ drunkard slept pretty soundly," Kyle interjected. "Suppose that she wasn't faking it. How could she move about in her condition?"

"If her state of intoxication was slightly less than we suspected, she still would have been able to navigate the house – even stumbling – by virtue of her _unlocked door_."

"An inebriated Sue sounds like a noisy one. I thought Karissa was guarding that branch of the hallway. She'd look into any disturbances."

"I went to the washroom at daybreak," Karissa reminded Kyle hesitantly, albeit without any shame on her part.

"Aha!" Stephen added quite unnecessarily.

As if he were refereeing a sports match, Kelly said aloud, "Point." The other Sues had been keeping pace with every exchange of arguments – heads whipping back and forth much like the spectators at a game of tennis – so perhaps the metaphor was accurate.

Lily asked with total sincerity, "Why the Lounge? Its distance from the Study is the entire width of the house. It's not impossible that Boddy was killed there, but there are many rooms that are equally likely."

"Since we haven't found a body aboveground, it must be hidden in one of the hidden passageways belowground. There are secret passages connecting the Lounge to the Conservatory and the Study to the Kitchen, but obviously the murder could not have been committed in the Study because the majority of us were inside it for a time."

"Obviously, if there was a corpse in the secret passage, Karissa and I would have found it when we were wandering beneath the floor, don't you think?" Kyle reminded Stephen patiently.

"Point," Kelly intoned a second time.

"Why the Knife?"

"Aren't knives considered a woman's weapon?"

"Whom did you hear that from, Stephen?" Karissa asked in astonishment. "It's much too easy for a physically dominant man to wrench a knife away from a woman. Most homicides committed by women involve a gun – if possible, she'll use the man's own gun for the irony of it."

Tiffany glanced at her with delight. "Are you unhappy with someone at home then?" she asked, borderline maliciously.

Karissa stiffened, but she did not flush, and she snapped, "I read a lot," with barely a pause. In the course of looking away from Tiffany, her eyes swung round and caught Kelly's by accident, just as he smiled a third time.

"_Point._"

"I'm afraid that you lose, 'Detective Inspector' Agent. None of your guesses were at all correct." Iris gloated as if she'd invented the action herself.

"What? Your man there awarded me three points," Stephen yelled in indignation. "I heard each one of his words directed at me."

"Sorry, they were meant to be thrown in my direction." Iris pouted at Kelly. "Although your speculations were logical enough, none were the truth. And in the eyes of the law, I would say that constitutes slander. All in all, I think this situation calls for some Karma."

Bright, violet light erupted around Stephen – briefly casting him a second shadow – and though it pained them to look away from their friend, the other Agents felt that they had to raise various barriers in order to shield their eyes, or else be blinded. When next they looked upon the spot where Stephen had stood, he'd vanished.

"Iris, what have you done with him?" Kyle reacted angrily.

"'If an eloquent speaker speak not the truth, is there a more horrid kind of object in creation?'" When he gave no response, Iris elaborated on her use of quotation. "Thomas Carlyle. Are none of you familiar with him? I quite enjoyed his essay 'Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question'. If we had been able to commission him for a paper on Mary-Sues, I've no doubt we could have distributed pamphlets with the end product."

"Again, I will ask you: What. Have. You. Done. With. Stephen."

"Whenever you Agents attempt to target one of us with the exploit of lies, Karma will deliver the appropriate retribution." Iris held up an object that was not unlike a teapot in description – that is, it too was short and stout – but there any further similarity ended. "I'm not at all sure that we have the proper name for this device, but you must understand that our communications with Sirahc were broken off after your worthless Society destroyed the much worthier Pro-Cliché and Mary-Sue Protection Society."

"What effect does Karma have?" Lily was adamant that they be told.

"As per Buddhist teachings, 'for every event that occurs, there will follow another event whose existence was caused by the first.' The Agent's dialogue was motivated by a desire to apprehend one or all of us without cause, so for him an unpleasant consequence was due." Rufous's voice remained totally level as he spoke, belying the fact that he might have disliked Stephen every bit as much as the Agent had disliked him. "He will doubtless be reliving one of his worst experiences even as we speak."

T_T_T_T_T

"HEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLPPPPP PPPPPP MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE."

T_T_T_T_T

Karissa couldn't type fast enough as she dialled the numbers leading to the Society Leader's extension on her Communicator. After three rings, she was met with voicemail. She frowned. "Hello, Tash? This is Karissa. I need you to run a Search and Rescue routine for Stephen using your Plot Summary. I'm afraid that he might have landed in the Twilight fandom again. Or else...he may have resumed his travels with Fred. Please call me back when you get this message." As soon as she hung up, Karissa attempted to contact Tash in another way. She sent her a text with much the same body of words. A few seconds later, her Communicator started to vibrate, indicating she'd received a response:

"_Out-of-office auto reply: Thank you for submitting your request at this time. We at the Anti-Cliché and Mary-Sue Elimination Society are currently unable to deal with you because we've suddenly sighted a Sovereign in another fandom. Someone in the Monitor Room may still be monitoring your own mission, but no guarantees. We promise to move you up in the queue when we're able."_

Having read the text twice – and still she couldn't hide her surprise – Karissa passed her Communicator to Lily, who in turn passed it to Kyle after she'd done, in the manner of a literal game of telephone. "Automatic replies? We've sunk to a new low," the latter Agent had to say. "If the others are too busy to keep tabs on our mission, I don't suppose they have anyone to spare who would be able to play back footage of this morning and simply tell us who the murderer is."

"No," Karissa and Kelly both responded to the rhetorical question at the same time.

"That's a pity."

Karissa also attempted to call her sister, but the busy signal that she heard on the other end seemed to indicate that Charis had since become involved in the big emergency as well. She hung up on the call only to return to a situation that could best be described as a Mexican standoff.

"Well, Agents? Would another one of you like to try your hand at defeating Karma?" Iris preened, holding the PCMSPS gadget like a trophy she was prepared to pose with.

"If Stephen's reasoning was sound in suggesting why Tiffany was a likely candidate for the murder, then Amber had equal access–" Kyle's confidence wavered when Lily began to shake her head dispiritedly.

"Amber is not at all assertive," she said plainly.

Tiffany scowled and linked hands with said Sue, who was given no chance to suffer injury before her self-esteem was buoyed up by the positive reassurance of her friend.

"We _have_ to find the body then," Kyle exclaimed decisively. With a furtive movement in Karissa's direction, he added, "Only once we've found the body will we be able to efficiently estimate a time of death."

Iris tittered. "'Genius is the ability to evade work by doing something right the first time.' I expect that doesn't apply to you, Agents! We'll see you again later at lunch. Au revoir!"

"She only steals other people's quotes because she has nothing exceptional to say herself," Karissa opined. It was the nastiest thing she could think of to say before they had to leave the room, to contemplate where they might have gone wrong in their reconstruction of events. The Sues remained inside the Dining Room to further the illusion that the Agents were being sent in disgrace to banishment.

...

**A/N:** Chapter Three coming soon.


	3. The End

**Disclaimer:** See Chapter One.

I know, I know. What I call soon has not been soon at all. Forgive me.

...

"Stephen's speculations were 'logical enough', but still untrue...the solution to the murder has to contain a name, location and weapon...hmmm."

Kyle paced about the Conservatory – their temporary base of operations – as he proceeded to list his thoughts aloud. They'd relocated to a room at one of the house's four corners so they might ostensibly keep a lookout on at least a degree of the surrounding area. For now, the Sues had shut all the doors to the Dining Room in which they had remained, so unless they were Plotholing, they were temporarily self-contained.

"It's beyond us to even guess the weapon used at this point. The hiding place of the body will give us a room name, but then we'll have to extrapolate a murderer based on the opportunity for each Sue to be in that room within a certain time."

"We searched the entire house, so I can't imagine where Boddy could be," Lily said, a little discouraged.

"Perhaps Boddy was already moved from the site of his murder. The Sues might have tampered with precious evidence already, and we have no way of knowing if that's the case. We'll have to search every place a second time. Curse that Iris – I'll show her genius!" It seemed that Iris's taunts had struck a nerve with Kyle. Karissa thought that there was another reason, too, for why he continued to look so unhappy, but she hadn't yet discovered what it had to do with the frequent glances he aimed at herself.

She tried to move past her own uneasiness, which had arisen in response to Kyle's. "Seeing as the Sues have barricaded themselves inside the Dining Room, is there any point in standing guard downstairs? We should all split up again. If we move quickly, we can reassess the environment on each floor and return before they've thought of dispersing once more. We can secure the Dining Room doors on the outside for further insurance," she suggested, meaning to be helpful.

"Lily, do you think that's a good idea?" At that, the feeling of wrongness within her intensified. It was strange that Kyle thought it necessary to restate her words in front of the other Agent. He could have simply said yes or no, and then left room for Lily to cast her own vote, but it was as if he'd somehow discounted Karissa's opinion by the way in which he'd spoken.

"I do like that idea. Let's do as Karissa said." Hearing her speak in a fashion quite opposite to what she'd perceived coming from Kyle, Karissa felt an instant rush of gratitude towards her friend.

"Okay, that settles it then. Lily, take the third floor; Karissa, you head for the second; and I'll take responsibility for the first floor, as soon as I've gone and lodged a knife in–" He broke off, seeing the looks on their faces. "The doors. I was going to say, 'As soon as I've gone and lodged a knife behind the moulding alongside each door, so that the Sues will have a harder time getting away.' I picked up a few more knives the second time that we were at the table, so the ratio will be one to one for every knife and door." Kyle flipped a knife into the air and caught it singlehandedly. "Honestly, what were you thinking that I would say?"

T_T_T_T_T

She thought that Kyle must have a lack of confidence in her.

Karissa had been entertaining a variety of options in her head, some of them personally upsetting to her – including the idea that Kyle simply disliked her as a person – but after the better part of half an hour, she concluded at last that he must be unimpressed with either her detecting skills or else her overall abilities as had been displayed hitherto in her first mission partnered with him.

"First impressions are the most important, after all," she admonished herself.

She was treading in the same footsteps she'd previously paced around the second floor, but this time – invigorated by new resolve to improve her work ethic – she was scrutinising the interior of each room as rigorously as was possible. She would not allow the results of this search to be called merely 'reasonable'; rather, she wanted her efforts to be the best that Kyle – or anyone else – would claim they could have been.

Karissa picked up personal objects that she'd decently avoided touching before. She sought out potentially undescribed hiding places suitable for weapons or valuables, other than the portable safes that attracted her eyes too blatantly. She even steeled herself to look beneath the beds, dark nasty breeding places for spiders that they were. "I worked myself up for nothing," she said with relief, after she'd lifted the edge of the first bedskirt. The bed was a box-spring and mattress mounted directly on casters, with no space between it and the floor. She silently thanked Boddy's interior decorator for deciding to forgo frames to raise the beds' height, and then quickly dropped the paisley-patterned valance.

She neglected the room that had been assigned to herself until the very end. She didn't hold any serious expectations that she might find clues there. She left it last to serve as an avenue for defeat. Although it didn't truly belong to her in the same way that her room at the Library did, she still derived some sense of comfort in retreating to a space with her name attached to it. Karissa sighed. Even upholding stricter standards, she'd yielded no findings. Feeling a little sorry for herself, Karissa kicked at her bed with half the force of her pent-up frustrations. She waited for the dull pain usually associated with stubbing her toe, but was not obliged.

Instead, her foot hit empty air.

Frowning, Karissa felt underneath the bed with her fingers. They encountered no resistance either. It felt like her bed had no box-spring beneath it. Box-springs were more common in North America than Europe anyway, so maybe she should be surprised that there had been ones in the other rooms at all.

She lowered herself to the floor in a kind of reverse pushup so that evidence of her eyes could be used to appraise the situation – and she screamed.

T_T_T_T_T

"Karissa! Karissa! What's the matter?"

Someone unfamiliar was yelling her name.

"Kelly? What are you doing to her? Get off– no, get away!" The next thing that she knew, Karissa was being held around the shoulders by Lily, who was lightly shaking her back and forth. "Karissa, tell me what's wrong. Was Kelly hurting you?"

Karissa appreciated the concern in her friend's voice, but however tempting it was for her to nod her head yes in answer to the question, she had to tell Lily, "No, he wasn't hurting me." Shortly thereafter, she clutched at Lily's arm, stopping the shaking.

"What caused you to be alarmed, Karissa?" The same voice that had been shouting for her, moments ago, now spoke again.

"What's it to you, Kelly?" Kyle countered suspiciously.

"Surely you can't expect me to ignore a lady's screams without inquiring–"

"Never mind him, Kyle. I-I found Boddy!" Karissa stabbed her finger at the deceptively harmless piece of furniture along one side of her room. "He was under my bed all along!"

"What is he doing there, I wonder," Kyle muttered, as he followed her pointing finger to take a look for himself. Bending down, he let out a low grunt preceding a tug strong enough to drag the body completely into the open. Immediately, Kyle began to catalogue details of the corpse in the same order that his attention wandered. He communicated his observations to the others with an almost clinical detachedness.

"Hmmm, he's still in his dinner clothes, as we concluded he might be. His breath smells like alcohol...he may have been murdered right after the first round of drinks was poured, or else this odour is a result of the ethanol produced in human bodies shortly after death. His skin is cold, but the cool weather last night would have caused body temperature to drop at an accelerated rate, so that's no help. I don't fancy cutting up his stomach to take a look at how much of his dinner was digested, but I'm not expert enough to differentiate between degrees of rigor mortis. What else might be of assistance?" Kyle began to peel back the layers of Boddy's evening dress, disposing of the tie and popping open buttons without a second thought.

"Livor mortis is livid. Therefore, he's been dead at least six hours and nearly certainly ten hours. I wouldn't think it's a big stretch to say that he's been dead twelve hours, which would place his death at around a quarter to eleven. The pooling of blood is consistent with the position in which we've found him, but that doesn't mean Boddy wasn't moved from the site of his death...care was taken to keep him face up, that's all." Kyle tilted Boddy's head from side to side. "He looks strangely peaceful – too peaceful – most likely because his facial muscles have slackened. He was probably rendered insensate before death, and these bruises around his neck suggest that what proceeded was ligature strangulation."

If the other Agents' faces were aghast by this point, Kyle's expression could only be described as downright solemn, yet he continued to monologue. "Boddy was killed by sudden and violent constriction of his windpipe. This sloping brown mark outlined in red at the front of the neck indicates that the ligature was pulled tightly upwards from behind. There's no presence of complex knotting, but that's a curious pattern imprinted on the wound. It reminds me of a braid...the murder weapon could have been a tightly woven cord, a necklace or a chain." Kyle's voice caught at that, and then he looked up, eyes hard. "Boddy was killed with a chain. A chain whip, perhaps?"

There was a protracted silence.

At first Karissa didn't even register the accusation against her, because how many times had she told others that she didn't like to name Gekkou a chain whip? She preferred the term chain-weight, which she had shamelessly copied from Wikipedia. Although her mind may have temporarily migrated elsewhere, the rest of her senses couldn't fail to eventually identify Kyle's hostile glare as the precursor to a threat.

"Oh my god, Kyle, what kind of person do you think I am? I would never kill another person – I would not betray the Society – and _why_ would I consider it? For, what, the gratitude of a Mary-Sue?"

"Kyle doesn't know what he's saying," Lily interceded, ever the peacemaker.

"I do know what I'm saying," Kyle gritted his teeth. "As much as I hate to say it, the modest evidence that we have so far has exposed gaping holes in Karissa's testimony. Boddy didn't decide to deprive himself of his esteemed guests' company just so that he could while away an hour or two by twiddling his thumbs inside his room upstairs. He had no reason to lock himself in an hour before midnight, because he was not preparing to go to bed; he did not remove any part of his evening dress. My outstanding opinion is that Boddy didn't get a chance to return to his room, because he was killed before then. Karissa must have been lying when she claimed to hear Boddy respond to her calling."

"Why would Karissa lie to us?" Lily asked, echoing the need for a premise in support of Kyle's argument.

Karissa protested her innocence strongly. "Boddy _was_ alive after midnight! Kelly heard him reply with the same words too!"

"Yes, I find that interesting."

"Kyle, our weapons were taken away from us before we were allowed to leave the Hall. You saw me hand over Gekkou," Karissa pleaded for good sense. "I don't know where it's been all this time that Boddy had it in his possession!"

"I know where your weapons are," Kelly said softly.

Everyone turned to the Stu after this confession had left his lips.

Karissa's voice was shrill. "You do?"

"I've known all along where in the mansion Boddy kept items that he deemed too valuable – or dangerous – to leave out in the open. I may have led him to the solution, while I was helping to liberate some extraordinary vintages of Cabernet Sauvignon on behalf of Rufous. If you'd like, I can lead you to–"

"The wine cellar," Kyle deduced, half a second before Kelly was able to finish his sentence.

"Yes, that's right."

T_T_T_T_T

Lily put her small knife back into its sheath for lack of anything better to do with it. She knew that Stephen hadn't exactly treasured his sword either, but maybe Charis would welcome the return of the weapon to the Science department's armoury. She was in the middle of inspecting it from every angle, trying to see how she could best bear its ridiculous weight – and thinking she should just use Live Slow, Die Fast to teleport it straight into Kyle's Astral Vault – when her ears finally registered the argument taking place beside her.

"No, I won't let you to hold a suspected accessory to murder! The idea that I might allow such a thing is especially preposterous since you yourself are a suspected accessory to murder!"

"My Author gave Gekkou to me as a gift, so I assert that I have the right to carry it!"

"I will say it again – no, I refuse!"

"Guys, please," Lily entered the fray. "Can we restrain the negative feelings towards one another and attempt to act like the crime solvers we're trying to be? If it will settle this dispute between you two without bloodshed, I'll offer to take custody of Gekkou for the time being. Is that okay with both sides?"

Sullenly Kyle nodded, and then Karissa did too. Lily twisted the chain-weight round the circumference of her left upper arm multiple times, until it appeared she had a mismatched armlet to offset her bracelets.

"If you'd like to stay behind me, I'll take us back upstairs, and lunch should be ready shortly," Kelly cut in, being entirely too helpful in keeping with his behaviour of the last ten minutes or so. Nonetheless, they let him head the line on the ascent from the basement, and Kyle didn't make a move to stop him until the Stu began to head towards the Dining Room once more.

"No, I don't think we'll be eating just yet."

Karissa rolled her eyes again at the use of the nay-word.

"I think we've got a pretty clear-cut case for the who, when and how of the murder, at this point. If we just take a minute to ponder the where, I'm sure that we can make another Suggestion in no time at all."

"Who are you including in this 'we', Kyle, because I'm surely still confused." Lily's patience was being tried past the point of no return, and the sharpness of her tone had evolved accordingly. As far as her personal philosophy was concerned, teammates should trust one another, no matter how stacked the odds seemed to be. "What with Karissa maintaining the state of her innocence, I know that – at the very least – her estimation of who committed this murder differs from yours, as well."

"Of course she pleads not guilty, who wouldn't?" Veering left to fall into the embrace of one among several sofas in the Lounge, Kyle let out a wearied huff of air. "Don't misunderstand me, Lily, I'm not enjoying this any more than you are. However, her complicity is the only factor we weren't aware of that could explain a couple of uncertain things. Firstly, let us state as given that Boddy died before midnight. The murder would have had to take place in a named room, assuming the Sues have any sense of fair play, and only later was Boddy carried to Karissa's room. After midnight, Karissa told the lie that Boddy lived; Karissa was given charge of all the women's rooms in the search for a corpse, but she didn't unearth Boddy under her bed until more time had passed; it is the mark of Karissa's weapon on the throat of our victim; and, lastly, it is Karissa who has been strangely friendly with a specific Stu for all the time that we've been here. Who's to say that said Stu didn't offer her some deal that was too irresistible to withstand?"

"Excuse me, I didn't set out to be friendly to Kelly, but he has been acting friendly towards me," Karissa said hotly.

"The death of Lela Koi may have made a Mary-Sue sympathiser out of her."

"Kyle! Just stop!" Lily knew how hard it had been for Karissa to make peace with the tragic demise of her sister-rival-adversary, and it wouldn't benefit anyone to open the lid on that particular can of worms again. "You're relying far too much on fragile supposition. Even though Boddy ended up in Karissa's room, that doesn't equate to her offering up her bed as a crime scene. And you think that Gekkou was used to murder Boddy, but wouldn't that be a violation of the rules as much as staging the death in an unnamed room? Boddy could have been strangled with the in-game Rope, isn't that right, and the shape of Gekkou could have been applied on the skin's surface afterwards. I don't believe that Karissa knew where our weapons were stashed, any more than we did, until Kelly blurted out the truth."

"Like I said, they could have done the deed together. Moving the body would have to be a two-person job."

"Iris, Tiffany and Amber spent a lot of time comprising a clique. They also had sufficient numbers to commit the murder as you describe it. Alternatively, I don't doubt that Iris has enough strength to carry a full-grown man unassisted. Why haven't you fixated on them as equally able suspects?"

"I have less reason to think that they were responsible because none of them are here lying blatantly to my face, and doing so repeatedly. Karissa's fib about Boddy's whereabouts at midnight is the most damning discrepancy!"

"Because of one mistake, you're going to pin the blame on her?"

"Kyle." The pronouncement of his name sounded deadly serious to everyone present. "I haven't once lied about what I heard at midnight; I won't be budged from my account of the events that night. However, you did get one thing half-right."

"Karissa? You have the right to remain silent, and all that, because you _are_ innocent until he can prove you guilty," Lily said worriedly.

Karissa displayed a tight smile, but did not appear to change her mind about speaking. "Iris – not Kelly – made me an offer when we arrived in the fandom. The consideration was not my cooperation in a murder, but my price was to be our participation in the game, since our decision to stay here was not assured. If I accepted, Iris told me that I could expect an award upon our victory in the game." Karissa wet her lips nervously. "She would – _she_ _will_ – tell me which fandom Viva's fled to. I never managed to Bookmark that dastardly demon, so I sensed an opportunity to be had."

"How could you be so selfish?" Kyle asked blankly. "Revenge was your motive?"

"Didn't you hear me correctly? I just said that I had no hand in the murder."

Kyle strode to doors of the Lounge. "That's not what I heard. I was made to understand that the Sues have something with which to hold over your head, and therefore they could be manipulating you, willing or not." He crossed the hallway in a matter of seconds and spoke through a gap in the broken Dining Room doors – he supposed that Kelly had shouldered his way through them in his mad dash to reach the hysterical Karissa upstairs.

"Iris! I'd like to make a Suggestion!"

T_T_T_T_T

They had almost forgotten that Kelly stood with them, so when the other Sues filed into the Lounge, it was a shock to see him cross to the opposite side of the room and join their group. He tipped his head forward and whispered into Iris's ear.

She laughed the same stupid laugh as before.

"Is there discord among your ranks, then? This will make a lovely addition to the tales already told of your Agents turning against one another. It doesn't take much force to break up your camaraderie, or so it seems."

Lily thought of the time when the Society had declared Ben a traitor, because he'd gone to extreme lengths in order to protect her from the Pro-Cliché and Mary-Sue Protection Society.

Karissa thought of Dave, who'd been recently promoted to a Department Head along with Charis, but before that had been the source of some mistrust due to his temporary loss of faith in the good intentions of the Society.

Kyle recalled the same examples, and he remembered the outrage and confusion that had surrounded Louise's role in the Basement Incident as well. However, he refused to let Iris's baited words put him off, so he quashed both the stream of recollections and any trace of his visible conflict with some effort.

"I suggest that Rufous killed Boddy in the Ballroom with a Rope."

Lily looked askance at him since, to her knowledge, the mentions of Rufous and the Ballroom had come figuratively out of the blue. Kyle had not included their names in his determined ramblings of earlier. He had implied that Karissa and Kelly were partners in crime which, come to think of it, was farfetched because...

"I think that Kelly coerced Karissa into helping him move the body to her room after the death occurred. For whatever reason, they agreed upon the implausible story that Boddy lived on after midnight, although the state of dress on the corpse would disprove that claim later on. But, do I think Karissa or Kelly committed the murder? No. They couldn't have. Kelly stuck closely to Karissa throughout the period of after-dinner drinking, and Karissa didn't stray far from Lily's side. Lily provides a reliable alibi for those two _not_ being the ones that killed Boddy."

Kyle paused for a breath. "Boddy was besotted with Iris, but it would have been very improper for him to leave the Study alone in her company. He was not the type of man to conduct an affair in another room as long as he still had guests to attend to. If he couldn't trust himself to be without company in the presence of Iris, neither would he have been swayed by young girls such as Tiffany or Amber, who have the added danger of being jailbait. However, it wouldn't seem so out of place for him to enter other rooms with a fellow man. Isn't it natural that after dinner the men would want to talk politics while drinking, whereas gender differences stereotype women to spend the same time gossiping while taking only the smallest sips out of their alcoholic beverages. Rufous could have easily led Boddy to the Ballroom, which is spacious and quiet, and then–" Kyle mimed a slashing motion across his throat. "When we found Rufous after midnight, he was holding the bottle of liqueur that was last seen in Boddy's arms. Perhaps he literally pried it from the dead man's hands."

"You were so very close to the truth, Agent." Iris stroked the body of Karma indulgently, and then she motioned to Kelly with a languid gesture. "Let him know how far off the mark he was."

Kelly's voice seemed loud in the Agents' ears as he said, "Only off by two, I'm afraid."

"You put a lot of effort into your explanation, unlike the last boy. I could almost believe that your version of events was the correct one. Too bad for you, I don't have the ability to rewrite history according to my whims. You will have to accept your Karma, but I don't think that it will be as bad for you as it was for the other one."

"Tell me where I went wrong, Iris." Kyle refused to back down, even as a familiar violet light began to leak through the Sue's fingers.

Her cryptic reply ran like this: "You have too much conviction in the good natures of men. And you underrate the importance of chance!"

There was no hint that Kyle might have shouted anything – discouragement or otherwise – before he faded totally from before their eyes. His disappearance was much less dramatic than Stephen's. Karissa idly hoped that he would end up somewhere safe, like in his room inside the Library. But he _had_ tried to implicate her in a crime that was morally repugnant to her – maybe he would materialise inside a locked room, required to wait for the Society to return from its mass mission and release him from confinement.

"And then there were two."

Karissa brushed off Tiffany's jibe and turned desperately to Lily. "Just tell me one thing. You believe me when I say that I had nothing to do with Boddy's murder, don't you?"

Lily thought again of Ben's actions during her kidnapping. He'd held Emily hostage, and had to aid and abet Repiv in attempted robbery...but what he'd done was forgivable when taken in context. "I believe in my friends," she said carefully. "That's what matters."

"Thank you."

"Do you two girls need time to regroup and rethink? I'll wager that, mechanically, you'll run out on us in the middle of lunch exactly like a reenactment of your antics this morning." Iris gave out a _tut, tut_.

"Since when was lunch prepared, and by whom?" Lily threw out the question with some apathy, but came across as being annoyed.

Karissa replayed the sound of Stephen asking, in her head, "Speaking of servants, who prepared the food earlier? Are there more flesh and blood bodies inside the house?"

Her own voice replied, ghostly as in memory, "Seeing as Mrs. White is dead, such details as cooked food, clean linens and made-up beds can most likely be attributed to ordinary plotholes. Sorry, Stephen, but I wouldn't bother looking into the matter."

"Lily, follow me," she said excitedly, grabbing ahold of her friend's hand and racing to the Kitchen. She pulled shut its sliding doors, and engaged the lock on one for good measure, although it would hardly hold back high-leveled Sues.

"Are you...hungry?" Lily cracked a smile.

"Why not? Watch me closely and let's see how this turns out."

Karissa walked towards the kitchen pantry and reached for the depressed handle. Pushing another sliding door to the right, she put her left foot forward in a step that should have brought her into the pantry.

Her left foot came down, and then her right foot was leading her away from the pantry door.

"You were turned around," Lily said, dumbfounded. "Do that again."

Each time, before she could physically enter the pantry, some force redirected her so that she once more faced a view of the kitchen. She wasn't turned away empty-handed. Karissa amassed a collection on the kitchen counter of a handful of grapes, a box of Ritz crackers, a square of dark chocolate and unshelled peanuts.

"The house is intelligent," Karissa reasoned. "It can hypothesise that I would like a snack from the pantry, but its self-preservation instinct is stronger than the desire to serve me by allowing me into its stores." She looked at the peanuts and grimaced. "Nuts make horrible munchies, in my opinion."

"If the house is smart, maybe it doesn't want you to spoil your appetite for lunch with something more to your tastes."

"Next experiment." Karissa filled a cup with clean water from the tap, and made a move as if to drink from the container. Unexpectedly, she let it slip from fingers and shatter into so many invisible shards upon the floor.

"Karissa!"

"I'm perfectly fine, see?" Her voice was calm and steady. "What do you know, Stephen was right, and food preparation had something to do with the murder. Don't you see? How could we expect that the house was programmed to perform chores on its own, in the absence of Mrs. White? This must be what Iris was referring to when she told Kyle that he underrated the importance of chance."

"What were her other words? 'You have too much conviction in the good natures of men.'"

"Bingo. Lily, congratulations, we've solved the murder and won this game."

"Wha-at?"

"We're wanted back in the Dining Room."

T_T_T_T_T

They'd been twice in the Dining Room today. The first time at breakfast, when they'd all been seated with food on their plates, and could pretend to tolerate each other's company for the sake of a good meal.

The second time had been prior to Stephen making his disastrous Suggestion, and they'd all been standing whilst glaring daggers at one another.

The third time more closely resembled the second occurrence than the first. Karissa and Lily reigned at the head of the table, with the Sues separated by sex to the left and right.

"I suggest that Iris killed Boddy in the Kitchen with a Rope."

Before she could expand upon her accusations, Kelly stood up and applauded the Agents. He was the only one to do so. "Oh, sit down," Rufous said with real irritation at his companion.

"I will construe your applause as instant confirmation that my hunches were spot-on," Karissa grinned warily.

"Please tell us a good story, regardless. Your contemporaries established the tradition, so you might as well accede." Boredom. That was what was left on the face of every Sue except Kelly, now that the game was up. Iris waved at Karissa to explain herself.

"Well, Kyle was correct in stating that the Rope was the murder weapon used. But when he lost, you remarked that he was mistaken in both the good natures of men and in the importance of chance. That got me to thinking – Kyle painted an elegant picture of the principles of gentlemen, and offered several reasons why Boddy must have been set upon by a male rather than a female assailant. However, there's a quote that goes, 'Never underestimate the power of love.' Boddy was smitten with Iris, but _I _think that he would have gone anywhere with her, even at the risk of looking like a fool in front of his house guests. Where would Iris have taken him, though? A timely mention of lunch combined with the words of my missing colleague produced an epiphany – plotholes existed in the background of this mystery the entire time. How better to dispose of a body than to toss it conveniently through a gaping hole in the plot?"

Lily showed signs of growing comprehension. "That thing you did with the glass of water...the debris reconstituted itself, so it was like you never picked it up off the counter, let alone dropped it."

"That's right. Theoretically – if we had another dead body lying around – I could try placing it in the Kitchen, and I'm betting Tudor Mansion really wouldn't like that. It would teleport the misplaced item – not considered a human being any longer, because it lacks vital signs – back to where it belonged, via plotholes."

"A question." Karissa graciously stopped talking so that Iris could make herself heard. "Wouldn't Boddy be transported back to his bedroom, in line with your logic? Why – and when – was he moved under your bed? Did you go so far as to figure that out?"

"I don't disappoint, Iris. Of course I figured that out. Boddy had been the victim of his friends' conniving more often than he could count. Whether they meant to kill him – or meant to steal one of his newly acquired treasures – he was always at the wrong end of a gun, a knife or the like. He must have thought, 'There must be some simple solution to confuse my guests so that they don't hurt me or each other.' He started sleeping in one of the guests rooms before the start of this weekend house party, didn't he? He meant to leave his bedroom empty, as the most obvious target for thieves and murderers. Let's say that he needed to sleep in his new room for only a couple of days before the house recognised that at his updated quarters. Henceforth, when he died, he was restored to the room that technically no one told me was mine. 'It's not safe to assume,' is a lesson that I will take to heart in the future. After that, it was a simple matter for you to place Boddy beneath the bed when you purportedly visited the third floor to wash your hands this morning."

"One _last _question. How did you come to explain Boddy's goodnight to you, at midnight? That was the one thing that had your fellow Agent kicking up such a fuss. He was as ready to label _you_ a criminal as I!"

All at once, Karissa lost the wind in her sails. Doubt wanted nothing more than the chance to take over her self, because damn it, she _had_ heard Boddy speak to her!

Lily saved the day by supplying the elusive answer. "If I'm not mistaken, Kelly is a ventriloquist. I didn't notice it before, but sometimes his voice would appear to come from elsewhere – closer to me than he actually was, or seeming to congratulate Stephen on his guesses when in fact Iris had Stephen beat."

"He threw his voice...through the door?" Karissa said wonderingly. Her expression soured. "That's why Boddy's reply sounded indistinct. I thought he was being surly!"

"Alright, it looks like your commendations are well deserved," Iris conceded, leading Kelly in another round of clapping. She produced a scrap of paper folded in on itself, and walked around the table to place it in Karissa's hand. "'To the victor belong the spoils.' Your award, as promised."

"Wait." Karissa didn't bother reading the note. "Seeing as we've won, you must realise that Lily and I are obligated to Prohibit as many of you as we can detain, before the rest of you inevitably escape?"

"First of all, I regret to say that not all in our group can Plothole," Iris drawled, pushing Karissa's whole body away with a single shove. She swivelled the chair she'd been leaning on, now holding it up in the manner of a lion tamer warding off a beast. "Secondly, feel free to keep Tiffany and Amber. I hear that your Society has become more benevolent, in favour of Mary-Sues. The girls might learn something from a stay at your Library; or in any case, they'll enjoy regular meals and mingling with other young Sues at the same age."

The two Sues in question began wailing as it became evident that Iris was repelling their attempts to get closer to her, at the same time that she eluded Karissa. Clearly, _they_ were the ones unable to Plothole, and Rufous seemed to share the same inadequacy. Kelly had the back of the older Stu's blazer bundled up in one fist, as he used his other hand to open a portal behind them.

"By the way, you may have wondered why Kelly stayed so doggedly at your heels, and why he was the first one to offer you comfort upon hearing your screams today?" Iris jumped a full five feet backwards from her inconsolable charges, landing at Kelly's side, but she did not even sound breathless. She slipped an arm through his as the three prepared to exit the fandom together. "I hope you can still hear me, because you're going to find this next bit hilarious." Iris's ridicule did indeed reach Karissa's ears loud and clear, even as she crossed over.

"The poor boy has a crush on you, haha _ha_!"

...

A/N: So ends over a year of writing. I'm reminded why I never tried a multichapter before this, and...sigh, I've still got Insert History That Repeats Itself Here sitting incomplete on my computer. My next fandom was planned to be Hawksong, but I think that I should take a break from fanfiction for a little while, at least so that I can a) pass my finals, and b) develop some of my older ideas for original fiction.

My mom's been giving me grief this whole week that I've been trying to finish this story, anyway. I'm not retiring from the Society, but I was never the most active author, so I'm simply continuing in that trend. I'll still be online...reading.


End file.
